Woburn is one of those dull places, neat, clean, and pretentious in public
buildings, which are forced under the hot-house influence of a great
political family.
We pass it to visit Woburn Abbey, the residence of the Russell family, with
its extensive and magnificent gardens, its model farms, its picture gallery,
and other accessories of a great nobleman's country seat.
It was at Woburn that Francis, Duke of Bedford, held his sheep-shearing
feasts, and by patronising, in conjunction with Coke of Norfolk and Mr.
Western, improvements and improvers in agriculture and stock-breeding, did so
much to promote agricultural improvement in this county, and to create that
large class of wealthy educated agriculturists, which confers such great
benefits on this country.
Now that every country gentleman has at least one neighbour who is, or
professes to be, an agricultural improver, it is difficult to give an
adequate idea of the benefit we have derived from the agricultural enthusiasm
of the noblemen and gentlemen who first made the science of cultivating
breeding fashionable, we must be excused the word, among a class which had
previously been exclusively devoted to field sports or to town life. They
founded that finest of all modern characters--the English country gentleman,
educated, yet hearty, a scholar and a sportsman, a good farmer, and an
intelligent, considerate landlord; happy to teach, and ready to learn,
anything connected with a pursuit which he follows with the enthusiasm of a
student and the skill of a practical man.
The other stations have nothing about them to induce a curious traveller to
pause. Not so can we say of BEDFORD.
Bedford has been pauperised by the number and wealth of its charities. A
mechanic, or small tradesman, can send his child if it be sick to a free
hospital; when older to a free school, where even books are provided; when
the boy is apprenticed a fee may be obtained from a charity; at half the time
of apprenticeship, a second fee; on the expiration of the term, a third; on
going to service, a fourth; if he marries he expects to obtain from a charity
fund "a portion" with his wife, also educated at a charity; and if he has not
sufficient industry or prudence to lay by for old age, and those are virtues
which he is not likely to practise, he looks forward with confidence to being
boarded and lodged at one of Bedford's fifty-nine almshouses.
The chief source of the charities of Bedford is derived from an estate of
thirteen acres of land in the parish of St. Andrew, Holborn, London,
bequeathed by Sir William Harpur, an alderman of that city, in the reign of
Edward VI., for founding a free school for instructing the children of the
town in grammar, and good manners. This land, now covered with valuable
houses, produces some 16,000 pounds per annum.
On this fund there are supported, 1st. a Grammar School, with eighty boys on
the foundation, and as many private boarders; a Commercial School, containing
100 to 150 boys; a National School, of 350 boys, where on the half holidays
170 girls are received, a regular Girls' School and an Infant School.
Beside which, the girls in the hospital for poor children, another branch of
the charity, are taught household duties, needlework, reading and writing. In
these schools the children of all resident parishioners of Bedford's five
parishes are entitled to receive gratuitous instruction. In the National
School twenty-five boys are clothed from a fund left by Alderman Newton, of
Leicester.
The Warden and Fellows of New College, Oxford, are visitors, and appoint the
master and second master of the Grammar School. There are four masters,
viz., the head, with two assistant masters; a mathematical master, and a
writing master. The scholars enjoy the advantage of eight exhibitions, of 80
pounds per annum each, six of which must be bestowed on town boys, the
remaining two may go to boarders.
The cheap and good education attainable as a matter of right in this borough,
have rendered it a favourite resort of half-pay officers and unbeneficed
clergymen, blessed with large families.
The church of St. Paul is large, with a nave and a south aisle, divided by
early English piers and arches. A stone pulpit, ornamented with gilt
tracery, on a blue ground, has been removed in favour of an oak one, with the
chancel. The church of St. Peter has an old Norman door, a fine antique
front, and some curious stained glass in the windows.
John Bunyan, author of the "Pilgrim's Progress," was co-pastor in a Baptist
Meeting House, in Mill-lane, from 1671 until his death in 1688. The chair in
which he used to sit is still preserved in the vestry as a relic.
A few miles from Bletchley, is a forgotten, but once celebrated spot, Denbigh
Hall, over which the traveller whirls without notice, yet worthy of
remembrance, because it affords a name and date for tracing the march of
railway enterprise.
In 1838, a gap in the intended railway from London to Birmingham extended
from an obscure public-house, called Denbigh Hall, to Rugby. At either point
travellers had to exchange the rail for the coach or chaise.
On June 28, 1838, when Queen Victoria was crowned, for days before the
coronation, the coaches for the intermediate space were crammed; the chaises
and post horses were monopolised, and at length, to cover thirty odd miles,
every gig, standing waggon, cart, and donkey cart that could be obtained in
the district, was engaged, and yet many were disappointed of their journey to
London.
On this London and Birmingham line, in addition to, and without disturbing
the ordinary traffic, 2,000 souls have been conveyed in one train, at the
rate of thirty miles an hour.
Truly Queen Victoria can set the railway conquests of her reign against the
glories of the war victories of Queen Anne and her grandfather, King George.
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